He interrupted the woman savagely, ‘Why don’t you confess properly to me? I’m not interested in your fish supply or in how sleepy you are at night … remember your real sins.’ ‘But I’m a good woman, father,’ she squeaked at him with astonishment. ‘Then what are you doing here, keeping away the bad people?’ He said, ‘Have you any love for anyone but yourself?’ ‘I love God, father,’ she said haughtily. He took a quick look at her in the light of the candle burning on the floor—the hard old raisin eyes under the black shawl—another of the pious—like himself. ‘How do you know? Loving God isn’t any
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